Tonight I experienced another very special moment. God truly smiled upon me YET AGAIN! And once again He brought the precise same message of hope to me!Here's how it happened:
I was teaching my 6th grade religious education class at St. James' Church after school. And since today we would be studying the parts of the Mass and the items used in it, I had gotten to our classroom an hour ahead of time to set up. I wanted to raid a particular closet where I knew I'd find kid-friendly "play" versions of an altar, tabernacle, priest vestments, chalice, patten, cruets, Bible, and and all the other ingredients necessary for Mass.
The students and I spent the majority of our time discussing the meaning behind the procedures that the priest and congregation follow during Mass. And, once our note-taking was concluded in the packet, it was time to assign roles to each student and participate in a mock liturgy!
The students seemed to have fun acting out the rites, but when the time came for the Bible reading, I felt like it was ME who was having the most fun! I shall explain why!
When the time came for the First Reading, I had asked my student "lector" to simply read a random verse from the Bible (instead of the readings assigned for this day) because we were now very limited on time. The Bible, which had normally sat open on a side table in our classroom, was now sitting prominently open on the little ambo pulpit stand I had erected.
As my pointing finger and focusing eyes aimed for the closest verse on the open page, my jaw dropped. The verse before me was the SAME ONE that had appeared TWICE to me (in different books of the Bible) EXACTLY ONE MONTH AGO. Here in Isaiah, the Scripture delivered to me the PRECISE same message (here on April 29th) as I received in the early morning of March 29th:
This shall be a sign for you:
this year you shall eat the aftergrowth,
next year, what grows of itself;
But in the third year, sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit!
I could not contain my excitement. Did God really just do this?! Did He just bless me with the same beautiful message of hope as He did on the same date (the 29th) last month? And was it a just a coincidence that that this verse in the Book of Kings is my current age (29) and, in the Book of Isaiah, it is the new decade (30) that I will enter with my birthday next month? Our Lady has promised that those who recite the Rosary will be blessed with signal graces. Is this what she means?The students immediately wanted to know what had captivated me so definitely in those pages. Why was I suddenly so joyful and excited? Without giving them many details, I just explained that I was astounded that God should allow me to stumble across the same verse in Scripture for the third time in a row.
"Maybe God is trying to tell you something," one of the students suggested.
"Yeah, He definitely is giving you a message," another student explained.
My students were right. There is no such thing as coincidence. There is only Divine Providence!
